A comedy that takes a cultured, well-bred Englishman and plops him down in the middle of the American "Wild West" wasn't new when this film was made ("Ruggles of Red Gap" did it in 1918 and was remade at least twice) but this isn't a prime example of the premise. Although he's a bit too old for the part, Kenneth More does a good job as a gun salesman for a British firearms company owned by his family who is sent to the West to sell his family's products and the Spanish scenery fits in quite well for the American west. Veteran character actor Henry Hull gleefully chews the scenery as the crotchety, scheming mayor who finagles More into taking the job of sheriff of the tough, wild town of Fractured Jaw, which is plagued by a feud between the forces of two local ranchers and troubles with local Indians, with Bruce Cabot playing the head of one of the warring factions. On the downside, the rest of the supporting cast is weak and much of the humor falls flat.
However, the film's biggest negative is Jayne Mansfield, playing a tough saloon singer who falls for More. She's just, to put it charitably, awful. She can't act to save her life, but her acting wasn't the reason she was hired for this--or any other--picture. She had done comedies before ("Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter", "The Girl Can't Help It") so she had some idea of how to deliver lines, but you sure couldn't tell by her performance in this film. She's inept to the point of embarrassment. Her chest was her single biggest talent (or talents, depending on your point of view) and even that's not enough to carry a picture. She and More have no chemistry whatsoever, and even though More gives it "the old college try", there's just nothing there.
Her incompetence ruins what potential the picture had, but given the script's limitations and usually reliable director Raoul Walsh's heavy-handed direction, it really didn't have a whole lot of potential to begin with. I don't know if it was a hit or not--it may have been in England, but I can't see how American audiences would have taken to it. Western comedies don't have a particular good success record overall--"Blazing Saddles" notwithstanding--and this picture is a good example of why. There are, at most, three reasons to watch this film, Kenneth More's amusing performance being one of them, but otherwise, forget it.
However, the film's biggest negative is Jayne Mansfield, playing a tough saloon singer who falls for More. She's just, to put it charitably, awful. She can't act to save her life, but her acting wasn't the reason she was hired for this--or any other--picture. She had done comedies before ("Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter", "The Girl Can't Help It") so she had some idea of how to deliver lines, but you sure couldn't tell by her performance in this film. She's inept to the point of embarrassment. Her chest was her single biggest talent (or talents, depending on your point of view) and even that's not enough to carry a picture. She and More have no chemistry whatsoever, and even though More gives it "the old college try", there's just nothing there.
Her incompetence ruins what potential the picture had, but given the script's limitations and usually reliable director Raoul Walsh's heavy-handed direction, it really didn't have a whole lot of potential to begin with. I don't know if it was a hit or not--it may have been in England, but I can't see how American audiences would have taken to it. Western comedies don't have a particular good success record overall--"Blazing Saddles" notwithstanding--and this picture is a good example of why. There are, at most, three reasons to watch this film, Kenneth More's amusing performance being one of them, but otherwise, forget it.